I mistakenly got entangled in a flamewar on the Perl advocacy mail list. The details aren't important except that I wrote a message that I did not intend to be insulting, but could be (and was) interpreted as dismissive of a significant body of work. I quickly apologized and clarified my intentions, but my apology was rebuffed. What do you do in a scenario where an apology is not considered enough? Try again or just walk away?
I strive to maintain a strictly positive, constructive tone in all public communications. I don't always succeed, but I think my contributions to the open-source community have been almost always entropy-decreasing. This incident is really bothering me...
The laws of thermodynamics apply in these types of discussions: you can only break even in the short term, you can't win, and in the long term you can't even break even.
Re:Let It Go
ddick on 2008-04-29T00:13:12
even though according to the laws of thermodynamics, you can't quit the game either, making a attempt stills seem like a good idea.:)
Re:two part answer
ChrisDolan on 2008-04-28T12:58:07
Point #2 is profound.Re:two part answer
rjbs on 2008-04-28T13:37:03
It's sadly true. While it seems like, at first, it will be a fun place to hang out and talk about how you can show off your whiz-bang kit, it ends up being half self-congratulation and half abuse. What kind of hacker, at work, would say, "I have a break coming up. I think I will go hang out in the marketing department."? Then, what if the marketing department was made up entirely of people who were taking long breaks from coding?
I'd rather talk about whiz-bang kit at the water cooler down in the coding cubes.Re:two part answer
Alias on 2008-05-01T07:33:29
Indeed, unlike in my new office in my real life, where IT shares an open plan floor and shared break area with Promotions.
How hanging out with PROFESSIONAL marketing/promotions chicks is a whole different story.
